so i've decided i want to start doing field recordings

amo · Post by **amo** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:12 am

Hey people, what about the new HD MD with 1 Go discs, it allows to record uncompressed PCM wave right ? I'm lurking on those myself...

henry ford · Post by **henry ford** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:53 am

i have an old skool sony mini disc recorder. one of their first. it has a dedicated chip for recording and a dedicated chip for playing. its solid as a rock and ive dropped it on concrete three times , its partially open and it still works.

HOWEVER,

theres no way i'd badger someone to get a minidisc over an edirol R1

ciw · Post by **ciw** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 11:02 am

I've had lots of fun with a cheap old sony minidisk and ecm907 (i think) sony stereo mic.

Actually the mic broke while riding an elephant but it was still under warranty

Certainly the sound won't have the same quality as some other solutions but I really don't think you can beat it for the price. At least not for me as I had an unused md player already, though that might still be true if you have to go buy one. (oh and you *can* disable auto level adjustment if you want)

On the quality front: I have made some nice stereo recordings (the mic is stereo) which add a good bit of atmosphere to my music. Also it's fine for speech and instrument recording. The quality is better than from my cheap behringer mic plugged into a mixer at home. Again I know there are better mics out there but I can't afford them and don't really mind either.

Check out http://infos.0db.net/micros/compare/indexe.php3 which i found handy before buying the above kit.

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 12:29 pm

martian wrote:mini disc might be physchoacoustically compressed but it's way more fun to lug around than a car battery and a laptop!

mic's 50 meters apart??? interesting but not one that's in the books is it?

may be a md is easier to carry but when you need to do some editing on site & upload the file to your server for backup you are a bit limited with your md .
mics 50 meters apart came to me in the jungle near a spring .i tryed to simulate a stereo signal that felt real , after a few hours doing sound checks & moving mics around , that was the solution that sounded the best .
since i stuck with it unless i was in a more noisy surounding where a normal mic positioning was more suited .

man , if you stick with the books you are in a real shit , recording is an art in itself & some of the best recording artists i have worked with have never opened a single book about recording or done any engineering school but had recorded enough chart toppers to make me sick .

martian · Post by **martian** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 12:54 pm

put ya feet back in that spring and chill!

I did say it was interesting didn't I? I'd bet it sounded good! but not really stereo recording in the true sense of the word..

there are a billion ways to simulate stereo ambiences -

from a mono recording - u can place the same clip just starting 20 secs later ( or what ever u feel appropriate )

or copy and slow down a bit ( make it say 96% the speed of the original) - place original in one chanel and the slightly slower in the other.... pull them back into sync very know and and again as necessary it there is something happening..

one channel forward and one backwrd can make some "wide stereo" too

If I had a billion $$$ I'd buy one of those... but as I aint yet - I'll make do and use my 6 year old 2nd hand MD and mic - to be honest only some golden eared audiophile can tell the diff - or if u really, really slow the audio down then 96K 24 maybe worth it - then again maybe it isn't? depending on how noisy the back ground is- what pre amps - mic cable etc ....

on philosophical up side - I get to review my recordings as I load them in...

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 1:09 pm

[quote="martian"]put ya feet back in that spring and chill!

I did say it was interesting didn't I? I'd bet it sounded good! but not really stereo recording in the true sense of the word..

quote]

of course it's not real it's a stereo fx simulation , one mic will pick up the sound from the spring & the other one will pick more of the other sounds around as animals , leafs moving, rain ,etc...during the editing i would pan at 3.15 to blend them together .

radeon · Post by **radeon** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:15 pm

50 meter apart seem to much you be as well to record mono. Why not record figure of 8?

elemental · Post by **elemental** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:27 pm

I've started using an Edirol R1 plus a Rode NT4 Mic. Very nice results so far. The Edirol isnt perfect, but does the job well enough ... needs a chargable battery, normal alkaline ones run out quite quickly.

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:23 pm

radeon wrote:50 meter apart seem to much you be as well to record mono. Why not record figure of 8?

that's the distance that sounded the best for the sound i wanted to get & i only had 50 meters cables .in reality it's like having 2 mono sound put together to get a stereo .i wasn't recording any specific sounds but the ambience of the place i was in .
you will never get a sound that sounds the same as if you was listening with your ears from 2 mics next to each others .i tryed directional mics but their angle was too limited .

Komplex · Post by **Komplex** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 8:55 pm

spiderprod wrote: i haven't made a penny from doing it(cd sales for these sounds are really low) but it was fun , really good fun .

Where can we buy them?

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:53 pm

Komplex wrote:
spiderprod wrote: i haven't made a penny from doing it(cd sales for these sounds are really low) but it was fun , really good fun .

Where can we buy them?

man , don't laugh at this one , it's not being distributed anymore but i am pretty sure you can still find them in any good yoga/relaxation/mystic/etc shop .it was called nature soundscape vol 1/2/3 .

inis · Post by **inis** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:09 pm

Ill back up the m-audio. its extremely small. exactly what i need for "field recording". if i wanted super quality, i would just bring my powerbook and do everything perfect, but this thing is awsome. cause its small enough to carry around all the time. and then when i want, BAM, recording 24bit.

so i've decided i want to start doing field recordings

what martian said